A/N: This chapter has made me somewhat nervous, because I'm taking a couple of liberties. The show has not given Scotty many hobbies or interests other than solving cases, taking a casual approach to boundaries, and sleeping with inappropriate women, so I'm forced to extrapolate. We've also got some big stuff with Lil, which has required lots of digging around in her head. Not an easy task.

Disclaimer: I don't own these characters, nor do I own the Philadelphia Eagles or the New England Patriots. Owning the Patriots would be wicked awesome, though.

Chapter Ten: Not That Different

Sunday dawned, and Lilly once again awoke to an empty bed. Well, not entirely empty, as the cats had crept into bed with her, but Scotty's side of the bed was unoccupied. Bereft of his presence, Lilly wondered briefly whether or not he'd left, but the aroma of coffee drifting up the stairs provided sufficient evidence that he hadn't. A bubble of joy rose within her heart when she realized he was still there, and this, frankly, shocked the hell out of her. Clearly, this was no ordinary booty call.

Rising from bed, Lilly glanced at the cats. Tripod was stretched out practically from one end of the bed to the other, belly in the air, soaking up the sunshine that streamed in from the window, and Olivia was curled up in a ball near the warm spot where Lilly's feet had been. Olivia opened her eye a crack and raised her head halfheartedly, but didn't seem to have the energy to beg for attention like she usually did. Even the cats must need to sleep in occasionally, Lilly mused, as she slipped into a pair of track pants and a long-sleeved shirt. Once dressed, she wandered down to the living room, where she found Scotty watching television. A football game was on; Lilly vaguely recognized the uniforms of the hometown team, but that was about it. She really had zero knowledge of, or interest in, sports; hadn't even known who Herman Lester was, despite his bona fide basketball legend status in Philadelphia, and, until fairly recently, she'd thought the Sixers played hockey. Still, football was case-related, so she supposed she could stand to learn a thing or two. Impulsively, she sneaked up behind Scotty and planted a lingering kiss on his neck. "Mornin'," she said softly.

"Mornin', beautiful," he replied with a wide smile as he offered her his coffee mug. "Well, actually…afternoon."

Lilly waved a hand as though it didn't matter. "Whatcha watchin'?" she asked, as she took a sip of coffee, then handed it back to him.

"The Eagles," Scotty answered, taking the coffee mug from her with a slightly sheepish grin. "It's sorta my guilty Sunday afternoon pleasure…"

Lilly chuckled slightly, then wandered into the kitchen, poured herself a full cup of coffee, grabbed a box of corn flakes, and returned with them to the living room. Smiling to herself, she placed the mug on the coffee table, took a seat next to Scotty on the couch, and began eating the corn flakes by the handful straight from the box. So that's why there ain't many bowls around here, Scotty realized as she inclined the box toward him in a wordless offer to share. With an amused grin, he took a handful from the box. "Breakfast of champions," he remarked.

Sitting there next to him on the sofa, Lilly quickly discovered that "sorta my guilty Sunday afternoon pleasure" meant "all-consuming passion," as Scotty became extremely animated at nearly every play. He tried to explain the basics of the game to her, but kept getting too caught up in the flow of the action on the field to give her anything coherent, so after a while, she gave up trying to understand the particulars and just watched Scotty. He was far more interesting to her than the football game was, anyhow. When the Eagles scored, he jumped to his feet, pumping a fist in triumph and kissing her in celebration. When things didn't go well, Scotty would either offer helpful, profanity-laced advice to the team, the coaches, or the officials, or he would just sit on the sofa, his head buried in his hands. Lilly was highly entertained.

Scotty, meanwhile, was on the edge of his seat. His team was driving, about to score, when all of a sudden, a wobbly pass from the Eagles' quarterback was picked off by a Patriots defender and run in for the game-winning touchdown as time expired. "Goddammit," Scotty shouted, driving a fist into the center of a throw pillow. He leaped to his feet and launched into an impassioned tirade about what a stupid-assed decision the coach made to have called a draw play at third and twenty, whatever the hell that meant, and forced his team into a do-or-die fourth-down situation. Scotty raked his hands through his hair, then glanced back at Lilly, whose eyes sparkled with barely suppressed laughter.

"What?" he asked, with a lopsided smile.

"Nothing," she grinned. "Just can't believe you get that worked up over a football game."

"Hey," he protested. "I definitely ain't alone in that."

Suddenly, the wheels in Lilly's head started to turn. "Hold that thought," she instructed Scotty before she jumped up and crossed the room to where she had haphazardly placed the Thompson file two nights before. Shuffling through its contents, she quickly found what she was looking for.

"Here," she said, pointing something out to Scotty, who had followed her. "This guy is in every shot."

"Who? The guy with all the face paint and the headgear?" he asked, craning his neck to get a better look.

"Yeah…he's there at every practice, every game, sitting right behind the bench…I wonder…"she mused, the wheels in her head beginning to rotate faster.

Scotty was intrigued. "You think maybe this guy's our doer?" he asked, his detective antennae suddenly pressed into service.

"Well, if he's as into it as it looks like from the pictures, maybe losing the state title game tipped him over the edge," Lilly said excitedly.

"I dunno, Lil, killin' some kid over a high school football game?" Scotty inquired.

Lilly just looked at him and arched a brow in disbelief. "This from the man who just sucker-punched my sofa cushion? People have been killed for far less."

Scotty took the folder from her and glanced through it. "Well, people can get pretty riled up about sports; it ain't too much of a stretch to think that if this guy's whole life revolved around this one team, this one quarterback…I think you're onto somethin', Lil." He returned the file to her, suddenly keenly, painfully aware of how very, very sexy he found Lilly when her brilliant mind was hard at work on a case.

Lilly glanced in Scotty's direction. "You bet your sweet ass I am. Wanna go see if we can track him down?"

Scotty smiled, his libido taking his mind in a far different direction. "You never quit, do you?"

"Never," she replied. Scotty grabbed her then, capturing her lips with his, and after a few seconds, they were up against the wall.

"Well, maybe not never…" she replied breathlessly as the file slipped from her hand to the floor.

That evening, Scotty and Lilly lounged in Lilly's bed, having elected to order in Chinese for dinner. Scotty was famished, and had abandoned the clumsy chopsticks in favor of a fork. Lilly giggled at him when he tossed the chopsticks in the trash. "You always use chopsticks when we're at work," she mused.

"Well, usually when we're at work, I don't have a hot naked blonde robbin' me of all my thinkin' ability," he retorted.

"I'm not naked now," she pointed out.

"You were earlier," Scotty replied, a wicked grin spreading across his face. "And you will be later."

"So sure of yourself," she purred teasingly.

"Call it a hunch," he said, arching a brow. "They did let me be a Homicide detective, after all."

Lilly paused mid-bite, a reflective look crossing her features. "Remember your first day? You were in the interview room with some…floozy…promisin' her a steak dinner."

Scotty arched a brow. "Floozy?"

"Some trashy lookin' blonde," Lilly replied, taking another bite of chicken. "Thought you'd brought your girlfriend to work."

Scotty laughed out loud. "She was an informant," he reminded her.

"Uh-huh," Lilly said, clear by her tone that she still didn't believe him. "You know, the day I met you, I thought you were a cocky, annoying little twerp."

Scotty chuckled. "Yeah?" he answered, finishing off his Kung Pao shrimp. He thought for a minute. "Well, I guess I kinda was," he conceded.

Lilly looked at him incredulously. "Was? You still are."

He tossed her a self-assured grin. "You know you love it. 'Sides, when I met you, I thought you were a real pain in the ass."

"Ah, my reputation preceded me," Lilly chuckled.

"I thought I was gettin' this real hard-ass, no-nonsense kinda guy," Scotty continued.

"Instead, you got a hard-ass, no-nonsense kinda girl," she replied.

"With a heart of gold," he added with a smirk.

Lilly rolled her eyes, then smiled and took another bite of her chicken and snow peas. Scotty dove his fork into her take-out container. "Hey," she scolded, gently rapping his knuckles with her chopsticks.

"I'm still hungry," he complained. "All the calories we been burnin', I'll waste away if I don't eat enough."

Lilly grinned at him and raked her eyes over the sculpted muscles of his shoulders. "Somehow, I doubt that," she said smoothly.

"But it's family style. You're supposed to share," he reminded her pointedly, giving her his puppy dog look, and she relented with a smile and allowed him a bite of her chicken.

Family style. Scotty's words echoed in her mind as Lilly looked around the room, a deep sense of contentment stealing over her entire being. She and Scotty were lounging in her bed, the cats curled up in an armchair in the corner, the gentle light of the TV flickering in the dimly lit room. She wasn't even sure what was on; they'd turned the volume down, and the dialogue on whatever show it was they were watching was more of a hum than actual, discernible words. Right there in that moment, as she swatted Scotty's hand away from her takeout container again, she felt, for the first time in a long time, that the universe was exactly as it should be, and all was right with her world. Lilly's brow creased as she tried to remember the last time she'd felt like that.

Scotty interrupted her reverie. "Who's the guy?"

"What guy?" Lilly asked blankly.

"This guy," Scotty said, reaching across her to the snapshot of the victim that leaned awkwardly against the lamp. Lilly's breath caught in her throat. Just when the moment was perfect, too…

The photos, Lilly thought with a sigh. Nobody ever seemed to truly understand this particular quirk of hers. Kite hadn't even tried, and she'd taken to putting the photos away whenever he came over. Ray had never said anything, but she knew that was only because he wasn't around enough to notice, and Joseph…well, Joseph had at least made an attempt to understand her need to keep the pictures by her bed, but the look in his eyes when she wouldn't put them away had told her that he didn't truly, completely get it, either. And now, Scotty was there, reaching across her for that photo…it frightened her to realize how much she hoped that he would understand.

Leaning back onto his side of the bed with the snapshot, Scotty realized that it was a picture of Brady Thompson. He looked up to see just the faintest shadow of insecurity flicker in Lilly's sapphire eyes. If he hadn't known her for so long, he was pretty sure he would have missed it.

"You sleep with their pictures by your bed," he concluded with a smile, tracing the edges of the photo with a fingertip.

She smiled at him. "It helps me remember…. Or makes me a freak," she said, with a slightly nervous laugh.

"Nah, you're not a freak," he said, kissing her forehead softly. "You're just a really, really dedicated homicide detective." He leaned back across her to replace the photo.

"You don't think it's weird?" she grinned, taking another bite of her dinner.

Scotty laughed. "Well, I'd be lyin' if I said it ain't a little strange," he said with a smile, "but mostly, I think it's adorable…and…kinda brilliant," he added, gently brushing the end of her nose with his fingertip. She still had freckles. He'd never noticed that before.

"It doesn't creep you out?" Lilly pressed.

"Well, hell, I dream about 'em sometimes," he admitted. "I'm always kinda glad when I do, 'cause it makes me understand 'em a little more. You get kinda…I dunno…attached to 'em, a little bit, I guess." Lilly's eyes widened in surprise. She hadn't known that about him.

Scotty took her free hand in both of his. "It's fine, Lil. All it means is that we care…that we're both damn good detectives, and you don't get that way by makin' it just a part time thing. And that…that's one of my favorite things about you," he added lightly.

"So seeing 'em…in here…doesn't bother you," she concluded, grinning broadly.

Scotty shrugged. "Nah... 'sides, I don't think I'll be noticin' 'em much, 'cause you are pretty damn distractin'." He leaned down and captured her lips with his. His hand stole around the back of her neck and toyed with her flaxen hair as he deepened the kiss, thrilled to his core by the soft whimpering sounds she made. Lilly arched up into him, and he could feel her hardened nipples through the thin fabric of her shirt.

He released her lips and asked softly, "You done with dinner?"

Lilly smiled and relented. "You can have the rest if you're still hungry."

"Oh, I'm hungry, all right," he said smoothly, taking the white cardboard container from her hand and placing it on the nightstand. "But it ain't for food." Joyous laughter bubbled from her mouth as he drove her down into the pillows and devoured her lips once more.

A/N: Sigh. They have to go back to work eventually. Like, in the next chapter.

Oh, and special thanks to RichE from the "Look Again" board for providing some very helpful video clips.